The English Glee
O musicians the word glee doesn’t necessarily conjure up a picture of someone jumping for joy, for it also means a piece of music for unaccompanied solo voices, usually male. The wotd is derived from the Anglo-Saxon gliv, or gligge-which means musicand the great period of glee composition in England was the 18th Century.
In a programme called The Story of the Glee, Stanley Oliver will give some account of this old form of music-making, illustrated by a number of famous old gises sung by the Baroque Chorus, It will be broadcast from the YC and YA stations, first of all from 1YC at 9.30 p.m. on July 26, The glees which have survived are now usually sung by small choruses, and the first to be sung in the programme is Awake Aeolian Lyte, one of the most popular gleés ever written, composed by John Danby, who was organist to the chapel of the Spanish Embassy in London during the latter half of the 18th Century. Other glees which are sung in the programme are How Sleep the Brave, by Benjamin Cooke; Here ijn Cool Grot and Mossy Cell, by the Earl of Mornington (father of.the Great Duke of Wellington); The May Fly, by John Calcott; and Hail, Smiling Morn, by Reginald Spofforth. The glee is a purely English form; No other nation has it. Glee clubs have played a notable part in musical life in England, and several members of. the Royal family have, for example, belonged to the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club, founded in 1761. Though glees are now usually sug by small mixed choruses, it is possible, says Stanley Oliver, "that they would be more efféctive if stung according to the composer’s intention, which was for. solo male voices. But I cannot share the opinion of the musical purist who believes that all music should be performed exactly according to the medium conceived by the composer or not at all." The Story of the Glee will be heard first from the YC stations (July and August), and frofm the YA stations in * September and October.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 783, 23 July 1954, Page 31
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352The English Glee New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 783, 23 July 1954, Page 31
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